About Richard Williams, alias Cromwell

The family fortune was made by the Protector's great-grandfather, Richard Williams, son of a Welsh gentleman from Glamorganshire, Morgan ap William. This Richard was introduced to the Court of Henry VIII by his kinsman, the great courtier and royal secretary Thomas Cromwell, later Earl of Essex. Some sources suggest that Richard's mother was Cromwell's sister, others that Cromwell himself had married the widow of a Williams. Richard soon became a favourite of the King and was one of the gentlemen sent to suppress the Pilgrimage of Grace. In recognition of his services he was appointed one of the Visitors of the religious houses as his kinsman pursued the policy that led to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The rewards started to pour in - Richard was granted the estates of the nunnery of Hinchinbrook and the great abbey of Ramsey, both in Huntingdonshire, as well as several other smaller religious houses. Then, in 1540, he distinguished himself at a joust in Westminster. During the tournament he was knighted by Henry VIII and presented with a diamond ring off the King's own finger. On Henry's recommendation he changed his name to Cromwell in honour of his relation, the Earl of Essex. However, his fortunes were in no way injured by the sudden ruin and execution of the Earl. In 1541 Sir Richard Cromwell became High Sheriff of Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire (the two counties were then, as they have been again in recent years, counted as one civil administration, and the High Sheriff was chosen in rotation from the old county of Cambridge, from the Isle of Ely, and from Huntingdonshire) and in 1542 he was elected to Parliament as MP for Huntingdonshire. He was appointed a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and served in France as a general of infantry. And all the while he accrued more and more honours and more and more estates and wealth. It was said when he died in 1546 that he must have left a prodigious fortune to his two sons, as big an estate as any peer.

- "Memoirs of the Protectoral -House of Cromwell" by the Reverend Mark Noble, published in 1787.